1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing apparatus control technique.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a method of increasing the printing speed of a printing apparatus, successive overlapped conveyance of printing media has been proposed. Successive overlapped conveyance is a method of, when successively printing images on a plurality of printing media, conveying a preceding printing medium and a succeeding printing medium in a state in which the rear edge portion of the preceding printing medium and the leading edge portion of the succeeding printing medium overlap each other (for example, Japanese Patent No. 4478289).
To effectively execute successive overlapped conveyance, the overlap amount between printing media needs to be decided as quickly as possible so as not to stop conveyance of printing media. To decide the overlap amount between printing media, the leading-edge-side margin amount of a succeeding printing medium needs to be specified. When deciding the overlap amount, the printing apparatus needs to refer to printing data of the succeeding printing medium in order to specify the margin amount.
However, a storage device such as a RAM for spooling printing data of a succeeding printing medium is necessary to refer to even this printing data. The storage capacity for spooling printing data of a succeeding printing medium is insufficient in a low-end printing apparatus, and it is sometimes difficult to quickly specify the leading-edge-side margin amount of a succeeding printing medium.